A major Italian home furnishing company needed to mass produce a small metallic component. This company had 
previously entrusted the job to a subcontractor, who however had not been able to satisfy the customer.
Two were the main issues:
- Consistently late deliveries (due to the large quantities required: about one million pieces per month),
- High percentage of rejects.
Thanks to positive word of mouth regarding the expertise of our company, the manufacturer turned to Lamipress to evaluate a possible trial order with the purpose of gauging our abilities.
What was the challenging request that the customer made of Lamipress?
The main issues were: producing the required quantity (one million pieces per month) in the time set by the customer, with a quality standard able to reduce the percentage of rejects to zero.
What solutions did you propose and what were factors that helped you in getting the job order?
Our technical department studied the issue and it became immediately clear that to obtain such a large number of pieces in a standard and reliable way, it was necessary to automate the production process of these metal parts by working on an innovative solution that would concentrate the different work stages through a specially designed automated system.
Please consider that 4 work stages are currently needed to manufacture this product, generally corresponding to 4 distinct and specialized suppliers; out of these four, one is automated trimming, whereas the other three are based on manual work. The latter are ‘bottlenecks’ reducing productivity and increasing the risk of production defects.
Thus, Lamipress designed and manufactured a customized automatic machine capable of delivering the whole production in a single step, with in-line quality control of 100% of the parts.
With respect to what the traditional market offers, Lamipress’ automated solution achieved the following:
- Tripled productivity: a minimum of 1,500 pieces per hour compared to the conventional 500 pieces per hour produced with the manual system;
- Ability to produce 24/7;
- Practically zero defects in standard production (reject rate equal to 0.0001) due to quality control throughout the manufacturing process of 100% of the products.
Lamipress subsequently delivered the trial order, which completely satisfied our customer, who has been with us for quite some time now.
What advantages did the customer gain by entrusting the job order to Lamipress?
Thanks to the automation solution designed by Lamipress, our customer has been receiving timely, reliable, and cost-competitive deliveries for years, with the following advantages:
- Increased productivity and product quality (zero rejects) drastically reducing unit cost;
- Decrease in the costs for management and coordination of suppliers;
- Reduction in transportation costs: Lamipress delivers its products directly to the customer, whereas products are generally transported from one supplier to another before finally being delivered to the customer when all the machining is done.
What are Lamipress’s overall distinguishing features?
Lamipress’ distinguishing features may be summed up as follows:
– Our staff’s highly specialized mechanical, electronic, and pneumatic skills;
– Sharing, exchange, and collaboration among our technicians. Thanks to this interpenetration of skills, Lamipress can design and implement complex automation solutions that combine the worlds of mechanics, electronics, and pneumatics.
– In-house management of a plurality of functions and operations. LAMIPRESS can perform diversified tasks in response to the many needs of customers operating in various manufacturing industries. Among these tasks:
- Design and manufacture of automated machines for customers demanding high production volumes. Lamipress can always respond On Time In Full to customer requests.
- Sheet metal stamping service through the design and construction of shearing dies and spinning lathes that will be used for production. As they are manufactured for internal use only (not for sale), they are designed to last longer and for superior performance.
- Heat treatment for some materials, especially steel.
What are Lamipress’s overall main strengths?
Lamipress offers the following services:
- Sheet metal stamping;
- Automated solutions for the mass production of metal components.
The features that distinguish Lamipress from its competitors may be summed up as follows:
PROBLEM SOLVING ABILITY
Lamipress is known and appreciated for its ability to offer effective customized process automation solutions for businesses that need to produce in high volumes.
Over time, our customers’ constant demand has contributed to consolidate and strengthen our experience in several industries, for which we have designed effective solutions through the integration of our technicians’ mechanical, electronic, and pneumatic skills
PROCESS ENGINEERING, RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT OF INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS
The design stage of our automation solutions is obviously followed by the process engineering stage in close partnership with our customers.
In recent years, we have also worked closely with several universities to develop innovative projects in the fields of automation and robotics.
Thanks to our collaboration with young engineers from the University of Bologna, we are currently developing new solutions in the fields of electro-spinning and health technologies.
OPTIMIZATION OF INTERNAL ORGANIZATION AND MAXIMUM FLEXIBILITY ON THE TYPE OF SERVICE AND VOLUMES TO BE IMPLEMENTED.
Lamipress specializes in the optimization of our customers’ work phases, which is of course also applied within our own departments: design and R&D, tooling, manufacturing, sheet metal stamping, and assembly.
Today, thanks to the help of our advanced management software, we can easily manage all of the different areas of our company (purchasing, sales, accounting, production progress through MRP, statistics, etc.).